Ethereum is currently decentralized because of the initial POW distribution. Won't there be centralized aggregators of eth so some point in the future a handful of POS nodes control a disproportionate amount of power? Is it so hard to imagine that coinbase or some other exchange accumulates enough eth to sway transaction validation?
Seriously, please answer if this is wrong!
>For certain kinds of 51% attacks (particularly, reverting finalized blocks), there is a built-in "slashing" mechanism in the proof of stake consensus by which a large portion of the attacker's stake (and no one else's stake) can get automatically destroyed.
You mean, kinda like in the real world?
[1]:https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-billionaires-...
[2]:https://www.oxfam.org/en/5-shocking-facts-about-extreme-glob...
Ethereum was launched with a 100% 'premine' of 72M coins, printed out of thin air and handed to the founders to keep or sell as they decided.
Since then another 44M have been mined, though it's not clear how much of that mining was also by insiders who influenced the work function's hardware compatibility or protected their hardware investment by controlling when/if the work function was changed or when mining was discontinued.